


Caught Between Forever and Nothing at All

by riverofnara



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Pre-Relationship, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 07:30:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10239044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverofnara/pseuds/riverofnara
Summary: There is a pattern to her life, the one constant Jyn can place her faith in and that is this: at some point, in one way or another, she will be left behind.or, Jyn runs from the Rebellion after Scarif and learns just how hard it is to leave it behind.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This came about after wondering what it would be like if Jyn survived Scarif but decided not to stick around with the Rebellion and how she might find her way back there. My apologies as there happens to be a lot of exposition for this story. Title is from the song "Scared" by the wonderful band Delta Rae. 
> 
> Would love to hear any feedback!

The ports of Leroq are a bustling crowd of diversity for the planet’s celebration of Union Day. Jyn spends the nighttime celebration in a dive of a cantina, nursing drink after drink. No one in here appears to be in a celebratory mood – just a purgatory of loners, drunks, and exiles. It’s exactly the kind of place she belongs in right now.

Someone bumps into her table, causing her ale to slosh everywhere. Mourning the loss of her drink, she looks up to see a man clearly beyond the point of inebriation. Clothes sloppy and hair askew, he smiles as though he’s the most charming man in the room. He’s unabashed in the way his eyes scan over her.

“Sorry, pretty thing. I’ll buy you a new one.”

“No thanks,” she says curtly and directs her gaze elsewhere, hoping he’ll get the hint.

He doesn’t. “Naw, come on,” he wheedles, taking a step closer. Jyn sees all her possible exits shrink and thinks abandoned ale is worth the price of escape. She stands up and moves to pass the man on his left but he grabs her wrist.

He’s on his knees in the span of a few heartbeats, his hand pressed against his throat where Jyn just clocked him. Jyn doesn’t stop to check on him, pushing her way through the crowd now staring at the commotion.

“Bitch!” she hears him shout hoarsely among wheezing breaths. Six months ago (or in the Before, as she has dubbed it now) she would have snorted, maybe have thrown another punch because there are far more creative insults in the galaxy than that and she worked hard to earn them.

But this is the After and in the After, the insults barely touch her. She doesn’t feel much of anything anymore.  
  
\---  
  
There is a pattern to her life, the one constant Jyn can place her faith in and that is this: at some point, in one way or another, she will be left behind.

It starts with her mother; her mother, who used to run the escape route once a week with Jyn on Lah’mu so they could be prepared if “the bad men” came, left her in the shadows of a hill so she could die for her husband instead of living for her child. Then with just two blaster bolts, her father followed in his wife’s footsteps.

Jyn didn’t handle it well. In the early weeks of joining Saw’s war, she used to comfort herself by picturing her mother’s guilty-ridden face and hurling accusations at her. Then her mother’s face would morph into her father’s and the anger would rise through her all over again. The universe gave her the right to be furious – weren’t they were her parents, weren’t they supposed to be there for her? 

But eventually, their guilty faces grew fuzzy with the passage of time and the words she overheard Saw shout to a clumsy soldier on a hazy, warm morning: never lose sight of your best weapon. The words haunted Jyn until she realized that they could be her saving grace. If Saw wouldn’t leave his best weapon behind, then nine-year-old Jyn was damn sure she would be that weapon.

So she begged for extra combat training and soldier drills. She learned every weapon that passed through their base. Whatever it took to be the best in Saw’s cadre, she was determined to do it. Because if she made herself invaluable, then he would not let her go. To a girl who felt cast aside by her parents, it was a flicker of hope that colored the dark world she lived in.

She would eventually learn, much too late, that even Saw ignored his own wisdom sometimes. 

If anyone asks Jyn how long she waited in that bunker the night Saw abandoned her, she would have said sunrise. But she waited two days, some of the longest and the most painful moments of her life. In the end, it didn’t matter that she was someone’s flesh and blood or that she was the best weapon in someone’s bitter war for freedom. Once was chance, twice was coincidence, thrice was a pattern. 

When she left that bunker behind her, head held high and tears long dried on her cheeks, she swore no one would ever have the opportunity to leave her behind again. If this was to be the constant in her life, then she would have to place herself one step ahead. It was a promise that she needed then and a promise that would eventually almost cost her everything.  
  
\---  
  
Five months since the Battle of Scarif and Jyn finally finds work in a Leroqian shipyard. The Sullustan who runs the place looks up at her with doubtful eyes when she asks for work but times are desperate for labor. He barely glances at her forged documents and just tells her she can start the next day.

With her small, nimble hands, she’s tasked to clean the nooks and crannies of the ships’ exteriors. Nothing to be proud of, but Jyn just puts her head down and gets lost in the work. Her hands are stiff by the end of the day and her clothes grimy, but the credit chips in her pocket are a solid comfort. She has so little of that nowadays.

But barely a month in Leroq and she already has the familiar itch to flee. The incident at the cantina the other night was no big deal, but for once in her life, she isn’t trying to cause trouble. She’s just trying to quietly make it to the next day. 

“Any ships leaving Leroq for the Outer Rim next week?” she asks the Sullustan after she picks up her chips one day. 

“Every damn day,” he says. Imperial influence is still weak in Leroq, but it’s only a matter of time. With the Empire’s expansion into the corners of the galaxy, Leroq’s port is sure to be a lucrative advantage for them. As a result, the port is booming with rather illegitimate businesses hoping to cash out on the port’s lack of oversight while they still can.

“Any ships you’d recommend?” Jyn clarifies. 

He doesn’t stop counting his chips. “For what?”

“Discretion,” she says. That gives him pause, his wide eyes studying her with peaked interest.

“Empire or rebels?” he asks. 

“Both.” She refuses to go into further detail and blessedly, he grants her the silence.

“I’ll check my logs and let you know,” he tells her. Jyn nods her thanks and leaves the shipyard. She keeps her head down the entire fifteen-minute walk to her room at an inn. Her room is bare, with nothing but a beat up cot and a broken mirror but the rate is cheap and the old woman who runs the place leaves her alone.

She groans when she stretches out on the cot. The lumpy mattress pokes her sore, aching muscles in the wrong places but she sinks into the cot like a dead weight and she doesn’t want to move. She drifts off a few minutes later, her hand outstretched for someone that’s not there.  
  
\---  
  
While her daily life has become a numb purgatory, her dreams have become a harmonious blend of both heaven and hell.

Sometimes, she will dream of Lah’mu and its landscape of simple grey. She is held by her father’s strong arms and is soothed by her mother’s voice and she knows nothing of the dangers beyond her home.

Other times, she dreams of a rotten paradise where blasters are going off, an alarm is blaring, and the sound of a body hitting metal echoes like a cannon, ripping out a scream from her throat.

A few times, she will dream of the beach and a light that shines brighter than any sun. There is no desire to run when the light shreds through her until she is nothing more than stardust, turning her father’s beloved nickname into a bittersweet prophecy.

But tonight, a rare night, she only dreams of the moments before the light touches her, where this time it’s a different set of strong arms holding her and a rough, tender voice soothing her. It is one and the same person and it is home. And it stays with her until the very end. 

Of all the dreams she sees now in the After, it’s both the sweetest and cruelest dream of all.  
  
\---  
  
The Sullustan comes through on his promise by pointing Jyn in the direction of a ship called the _Thousand Suns_. The captain isn’t particularly bright – he spends his time pigging out in the kitchen and arguing with his navigator about what the prettiest star in the galaxy is – but he accepts credits at a decent rate and asks her no questions. 

Jyn takes the only seat left, next to an older woman with her grey hair pulled into a plait and milky white eyes that make Jyn’s heart ache something fierce. A name comes to mind but she banishes it. Guilty parties should never speak of the dead they left behind.

The trip is spent in silence, though Jyn’s mind seems to shout its cluttered thoughts while she tries to plot her next move. 

The freedom the Alliance awarded her with is so different than Jyn imagined it to be. She used to think it would be the ultimate prize, an opportunity to disappear into the vastness of space. She used to relish a lack of purpose because it meant no expectations, no disappointments. But now it is only a void, an aimless path that she doesn’t know how to walk anymore. The lack of purpose is a dead weight on her shoulders and it’s getting heavier and heavier to bear each day.

Jyn can’t deny she hasn’t thought about turning back to the Alliance. When she hears the scattered news about the Rebellion and their victories and defeats, she is always taken aback by the ache of longing she feels for it. It is a siren’s song that calls to her, a gentle caress that beckons her in a way no other place has before.

But the promise her sixteen-year-old self swore upon is still an anchor chained to her heart, reminding her that she can’t give in. If she is doomed to always be left behind, then she must be the first one to leave. Three times is more than enough; she refuses to let there be a fourth.

So when she gets off at the first planet the _Thousand Suns_ docks at, she leaves thoughts of the Rebellion behind on the ship so they may sail away into the dark nothingness.  
  
\---  
  
Jyn should know better than to forget that the Empire always gets the last word in her life.

A week after she leaves Leroq, the HoloNet is blaring in the city square, announcing Imperial victory over the rebels and their main base on Yavin IV. They show footage of the ziggurats crumbling, Imperial troops storming the ruins, and the bodies of rebel troops on the ground. The news hails it as a crushing blow to the resistance and an exciting victory for the Empire.

Shocked, Jyn watches the images play out with a cold knot of dread in her chest. People push past her on the streets, caring little for the devastating announcement of another Imperial victory. For them, life goes on while Jyn’s is suddenly thrown into a bleak chasm. 

(In the Before, Jyn wouldn’t have reacted.

She would have watched the HoloNet news with something akin to disinterest. War is fought in battles and sometimes you win some while you lose others. She would have walked off without a spare thought.)

She barely makes it back to her room before she finally allows the storm to overwhelm her. Her clenched fists rain down against the walls, her mouth is open in a silent scream, and her heart beats to a wild dirge of despair. 

But she shouldn’t be feeling this way. She has to remind herself that she left, that it is not her cause, that the only way she can afford to look now is down because that’s how she has survived this long.

And yet…none of that reflects the reality she has been stranded in. Because in the After, she struggles to look down most days. In the After, she may not be with the cause but her heart is, wedged firmly in its desire to make the Empire crumble into dust. In the After, she never really left, only chose to run away so the rebels never had a chance to leave her behind like everyone else.

She didn’t realize how much of a comfort it was, knowing that Yavin IV was there untouched by the Empire. If she ever changed her mind, she knew where to go. But that chance is buried in the ruins of Yavin IV and it is too late to ever turn back.

This is a cruel abandonment that she never could have imagined. And it is a new kind of hell all of its own.  
  
\---  
  
If she’s being honest with herself, it’s really not about the base.

It’s about what it symbolizes: deep brown eyes, the smell of blaster oil, and a warm murmur of _welcome home_ that chases her out of darkness into a light so bright, she is willingly blinded by its beauty.

But that is all in the During and in waking hours, Jyn has tried not to think of anything (anyone) from the During. It is a whirlwind of emotions, a storm of extremes she experienced in such a short time. In the During, she had been unmade only to be pieced back together in stitches of hope. In the During, she both lost herself and then found herself, a rebirth she never expected to be gifted.

Jyn left the During behind on a hospital bed on Yavin IV, where a doctor had the misfortune of robbing her of what little hope she had left. _The plans are gone_ and _his chances are slim_ and _I’m sorry_ are words she doesn’t ever want to hear again so she keeps those locked up with the rest of her memories of the During.

When she has to think of it, she forces herself to think of the sand beneath her and a warm embrace around her. She remembers thinking then how lucky she would be to perish right then and there. 

Some days she wishes she had been so lucky indeed.  
  
\---  
  
Jyn spends the next few weeks trying to gather any information she can about the surviving rebels. She knows the Alliance is stretched far and wide, that even with the destruction of their headquarters it wouldn’t be the end of them. But they’ll certainly be in hiding now and she doubts they will be advertising their location.

So she travels from port to port, city to city and eventually hears whispers in seedy back alleys: Mon Mothma and Princess Leia Organa survived the destruction (had even evacuated long before the Empire’s attack). Most of the Council survived. General Dodonna is dead (she never knew his name but she sees his profile on the HoloNet and recognizes him from that fateful first meeting in the command room). As it turns out, the Empire refuses to admit that while it was an Imperial victory, many rebels had time to evacuate before the battle began.

Her heart swells at that because that means there was a chance for survival for some (and maybe for one in particular, if he was even alive at all). 

But among all the rumors, no one seems to know where the rebels are fleeing to at the moment. It’s better that way, she decides when she’s alone in another cantina. The Alliance can’t risk their leaders now that the galactic war has truly begun. But that leaves her options limited if she wants to throw herself back into the cause. 

The mere thought of running back to the Alliance gives her pause. She gulps down another shot of whiskey, drawing solace from the burn as it makes its way down her throat.

If she goes back into the fight, it would jeopardize everything she thought she had wanted. The last six months would have been for nothing. The freedom the Alliance granted her, the freedom she craved so deeply before, would be laid to waste. If she helps the Alliance again, Jyn knows deep down the only way she’ll leave them is her own death.

She should be afraid of that conviction. And yet, she has already had a taste of death on the beaches of Scarif and she was not afraid then. Maybe next time she meets death, if it were in the wake of a crumbling Empire, she wouldn’t be so afraid then too.

Closing her eyes, Jyn clutches the glass in her hand until her knuckles are white. She shouldn’t have left the Rebellion. She knows it now like the scars etched on her body and her heart. But it is too late to change that. Her options may be limited but she swears she will do what she can until the Empire is forced to rip away her very last breath. This is her new promise, one to replace that old promise she has dragged behind her for so long.

It’s time to let that promise go. And she does – she leaves it in the last dregs of whiskey at the bottom of her glass and she doesn’t look back.  
  
\---  
  
Weeks of searching finally yield a meeting with the leader of a local rebel group on a distant Outer Rim moon. Shiara is a Togruta with dark blue skin and sharp eyes and she regards Jyn with a sense of caution.

“What makes you want to join the cause, Freeya?” she asks Jyn with a guarded smile. Freeya is just another alias, because while Jyn wants to help the Alliance again, she doesn’t know what welcome awaits her if she uses her real name. She’ll take shelter in anonymity as she has done before.

This question, though, she doesn’t have to lie. “Yavin IV,” Jyn says, proud of the way her voice doesn’t shake, “I saw the images on the HoloNet, all that destruction the Empire caused.”

Shiara nods grimly, the corner of her eyes tight. “The casualties could have been much worse.”

Jyn swallows down the burning question on the tip of her tongue. There was no way Shiara would know who Jyn was asking about. Instead, she continues on “It just seems as good as time as any to join the cause. The Empire can’t be allowed to keep doing this.” 

“I agree.” The smile on Shiara’s lips is a little friendlier now and Jyn knows she has her. “So do you fancy yourself a saboteur, Freeya?”

Jyn returns the smile with one of her own – one-hundred percent Jyn Erso in its reckless confidence.  
  
\---  
  
Jyn’s orders start off small – steal supplies from ships making a pit stop on this moon. Cut a few communication lines on that nearby planet. General mischief that, frankly, Jyn knew how to do when she was ten. Her successes don’t go unnoticed and soon Shiara recruits her for the bigger missions: vandalizing bases, sabotaging ships, theft of important Imperial resources.

Once, they are called to set fire to a storage unit with Imperial hardware. Jyn watches the flames reach towards the heavens as the building burns and burns and burns and it feels as though a part of her guilt burns with it.

This, her blood sings to the blaze, this is what she is meant to do. She will see it through to the very end – whether it is the Empire’s end or her own.  
  
\---  
  
As much as she tries, when night falls, the During never really goes away.

She relives the harsh beats of rain against her skin while she looks down at her father’s lifeless face, mere seconds after he speaks his last words. She sees eager and anxious faces peering at her in the depths of a stolen Imperial ship, drinking in any word she says to soften the blow of their impending fate. She hears the blaster fire ricochet followed by a mechanical voice urging her to climb before silence crashes around them.

She feels her heart soar when she peers up into brown eyes in the shaft of an elevator, eyes softer than she’s ever seen them and she aches with an emotion she has never felt before. All she wants is more time but she knows there is none left for them.

When she wakes, her eyes are misty and her soul is grieving. It hurts, not knowing if the person whose existence has claimed a piece of you is gone. She could have lost him months ago or just the other day and she would never know. It hurts, but Jyn is learning to pack the emotions away piece by piece. She is the one to bring this on herself and if it must be her punishment for running, then so be it.  
  
\---  
  
Eight months after she joins the small rebel group, Shiara approaches her with an inextinguishable excitement alight in her eyes.

“Orders directly from headquarters this time,” she says in hushed tones, her lekku twitching anxiously. 

Jyn raises her eyebrows. They’ve never gotten their orders straight from headquarters before. “What are they?”

“Blow up a weapons shipment that’ll arrive in Helsa in a few days’ time. It’s supposed to supply troops fighting those recent insurgencies out here.”

Jyn whistles low in her throat. This is the chance to do some good damage to the Empire, in ways Jyn hasn’t been able to since she joined Shiara’s group. Just thinking about it brings about a pleasant curl of anticipation in her gut.

It must show on her face, because Shiara’s smile is wicked. “I assume you’re in?”

Jyn grins. “Absolutely.”  
  
\---  
  
To make this mission a success, headquarters has enlisted the help of three other rebel fringe groups located in the same system. But no expects a lieutenant from headquarters to be the one spearheading the mission.

“This must be a big deal if they’re sending you in, Lieutenant,” Shiara greets the man waiting for them when they arrive to the mission’s home base. The man looks to be younger than Jyn, with blonde curls and blue eyes but Jyn sees the shadow of a soldier in the set of his shoulders and the tilt of his head. The man has war experience same as the rest of them.

“Hate to be honest Shiara, but I’m not here because I want to be,” he says but he wears a friendly smile as if to say it isn’t personal. 

“My apologies that you have to actually lift a finger around here,” Shiara retorts but with her own smile before she turns to the rest of her group, “Everyone, this is the high and mighty Lieutenant Alexorio Foss with Rebel Intelligence.” 

Jyn’s heart stops dead in her chest. Shiara goes through individual introductions of each member and when she reaches Jyn, it’s a struggle to keep the panic off Jyn’s face. His eyes seem linger on Jyn and with a sick twist of her gut, Jyn thinks that her cover is completely blown. But if it is, he doesn’t expose her. He shakes her hand brusquely and calls her Freeya before calling everyone in for a huddle.

Foss apparently has all the mission details down to a tee. They are to split into three groups with distinct responsibilities – distraction, infiltration, and escape. While Shiara’s group is mostly placed in the distraction group, Jyn is surprised to learn Shiara has recommended her for the infiltration group. Shiara shrugs it off when Jyn asks why.

“Foss asked me for the best, so I gave him our best.” And there it is: what she craved so much as a child. But somehow, after everything she has experienced, it is a meaningless achievement. Jyn almost laughs at the absurdity of it. But she gives Shiara a grateful smile and leaves it at that.  
  
\---  
  
Jyn has never been one for patience before a mission, always anxious to get to work. But tonight as she waits with Foss and four others for Shiara’s signal, she finds that her impatience is exacerbated with an unfamiliar sense of foreboding. She’s playing with her necklace before she even realizes it, fingers running over the smooth surface of the crystal.

Foss catches her with the necklace in her hand. “Don’t be nervous,” he tells her with a grin and Jyn resists the urge to roll her eyes.

“I’m not,” she bites out and Foss shrugs but she can tell he doesn’t buy it. But that uneasiness doesn’t go away and suddenly, Jyn realizes that this will be her only chance to find out the truth. She has punished herself long enough now – she has to know.

“Lieutenant,” she whispers. 

“Yeah?”

“Shiara said you were with Rebel Intelligence, right?”

Foss’s gaze slides her way before he gives his answer. “Yeah.”

“Do you know…” Jyn fumbles for a moment. She hasn’t dared to say his name in over a year, no matter how much he has haunted her dreams.

“Know who?”

“Cassian Andor.” It’s said in a rush, both as a burden and a blessing all at once. “Captain Cassian Andor. Do you know him?”

She only knows Foss is taken aback by the way his eyebrows raise. It has to be unusual for a no-name rebel to know the name and rank of one of their best spies, but Jyn doesn’t care. 

“Major,” Foss says finally.

Jyn furrows her eyebrows. “What?”

“Major Andor. He was promoted after the Death Star was destroyed.” 

“Is he alive?” she demands, unable to prevent the urgency in her voice.

“As of last week when he gave me my orders.” Relief crashes through her like a tidal wave, refreshing and overwhelming at the same time. _Alive. He’s alive._ “How do you know him?” Foss inquires sharply and there is that lingering gaze again, trying to search her in and out.

“I helped him on a mission once,” Jyn says. Her answer is vague and unconvincing, a remarkably familiar voice pipes up in her mind. “I wasn’t sure if he survived the attack on Yavin IV.”

Judging by the expression on Foss’s face, he isn’t satisfied with her response but at that moment, there are three quick bursts of light – Shiara’s signal.

“Time to move,” Foss mutters, giving her one last strange look before slipping off towards the base. 

There is no time to celebrate but she gives herself just one tiny moment, a moment where she finally lets herself imagine Cassian standing in front of her, looking at her as he did on that elevator shaft like she was the only star in the universe. It gives her whatever strength she needs to ignore her unease. She squeezes her crystal one last time and, after a grateful pray to the Force, tucks it back under her shirt.  
  
\---  
  
Jyn comes to with the taste of blood in her mouth and cold handcuffs biting into her wrists.

Across from her is a woman dressed in Imperial garb, her face haughty as she takes in the sight of Jyn.

“Just in time for your first torture session,” the woman says as if she’s talking about a stroll in the park, “Do you prefer water or fire?”

Jyn takes in a deep, rattling breath.

And spits at the woman’s feet.

The punch to the face makes Jyn sees stars but Jyn grits her teeth. She won’t make a single sound. She refuses.

“A little bit of both then,” the woman says. Her eyes follow Jyn as she is dragged out of the room.  
  
\---  
  
Later, shivering on the floor of her prison cell with her hair still wet, Jyn thinks of the mission.

It was successful, that much she remembers. The explosion still echoes in her mind and even now she can imagine the heat of the flames on her back when she and Foss fled.

But their escape route was unexpectedly full of troopers. Jyn didn’t know what guided her to look back but there was a trooper aiming his blaster at Foss while Foss wrestled with another trooper. She hadn’t even been aware of how fast she moved, only that she was heading towards Foss and then she was on the ground with a blaster wound to her chest. Everything else is fuzzy after that.

Ignoring the searing pain of the small burns littering her arms, Jyn curls into a tighter ball, hugging her knees to try and stay warm.

There is no hope for the rebels to come back for her. Their numbers are too few and Jyn is no one, hardly worth the waste of resources. She’s back to where she had been in the Before and in the After: disposable, left behind at the mercy of the Empire’s love for destruction. That damn constant in her life strikes again.

But Cassian is alive. That thought is so precious, so dear she can’t seem to feel the pain of abandonment she once feared so much. How strange, for her life to reach the kind of end she thought she feared the most, only for her to realize that she wasn’t so scared of it after all.

She wraps a shaking hand around her crystal and closes her eyes. Against the palm of her hand, a surge of warmth takes over and alone in the darkness of her cell, Jyn smiles.  
  
\---  
  
The next time she wakes, they’re digging into the blaster wound on her chest.  
  
\---  
  
The time after that, they’re drilling a hole into her thigh.  
  
\---  
  
The time after _that_ , the floor beneath her jars her entire body and she lets out an involuntary scream as the pain suffocates her.

Through blurred vision, a familiar blue face hovers over hers. “Freeya, I’m so sorry – “ But the voice dies down as she sinks back into the depths of unconsciousness.  
  
\---  
  
When Jyn wakes again – this time for good – she is lying in soft sheets and the scent of a sterile environment invades her senses. She blinks at the window she’s facing, seeing the light of two moons pouring over a rocky landscape.

She has no idea where she is. Her heartbeat quickens and she inhales sharply. Then she bursts out into a series of coughs, exacerbating her already aching chest.

“Jyn. _Jyn_. You’re safe. You’re safe here.” Hands brush her arm and she jerks wildly, head swinging to see –

She stops, staring at Cassian sitting in a chair beside her bed. He is different than what she tried hard not to remember, his beard thicker and his hair longer but his eyes are the same as what she has dreamt for over a year now. She never thought she’d see those eyes again.

“Cassian,” she breathes, her hand already outstretched and reaching for him. He takes her hand, fingers pressed to the pulse at her wrist. Her heart is still racing but for a different reason entirely. “What – “

“Deep breaths,” he instructs her quietly, “Calm down first.” Far away, Jyn feels the bite of a sharp retort come up but she ignores it and does as she’s told. Her grip on Cassian’s hand is tight but his face doesn’t show the slightest hint of pain and his eyes haven’t left her face since she woke up. “That’s it,” he whispers as her heart ceases its rapid pounding and her lungs no longer burn.

“What happened?” she asks finally when she feels as though she’s able to breathe, “How are you…” She trails off, unsure as how she complete that sentence.

“You’re on a rebel base in the Hoth sector. You were rescued from an Imperial base two days ago.” She’s not sure if she imagines the dark look that passes over his face but it’s gone before she can look into any further. “You’re stable, but the droid mentioned you need another couple days for recovery.”

Jyn’s head swims with the news. She was rescued. The rebels didn’t leave her behind after all. 

She takes stock of her condition. Bandages are wrapped tightly around her chest and her right thigh. Smaller bandages and patches are placed over her skin like a broken quilt, and there is some sort of goop on the burns on her arms. Decent wounds but no irreparable damage. 

Cassian’s thumb sweeps over her knuckles and this time she drinks in the sight of him. His expression isn’t its usual carefully crafted mask – instead, he’s looking at her with a little bit of wonder, a lot of concern, and a dash of disbelief. He’s looking at her as though he had thought he’d never see her again. She’s pretty sure the same expression is mirrored on her own face.

“How did you find out?” she whispers.

“Lieutenant Foss. Asked me if I knew a woman named Freeya. I didn’t know the name, nearly dismissed him after I told him as much but then he mentioned a crystal necklace.” Jyn’s free hand reaches to clutch the familiar weight hanging around her neck; Cassian’s eyes follow the movement. A look of melancholy passes over him. “I wouldn’t have known had he not mentioned the necklace.”

Guilt floods through her, bringing an ache to her soul. “Cassian – “

But Cassian shakes his head and for the first time since she woke up, he looks away. “You should rest – “

“I’m sorry,” Jyn blurts out. What she’s apologizing for, she’s not quite sure – for leaving, for not saying goodbye, for her fears taking over her. But she wants him to hear the words all the same.

Cassian’s eyes flutter shut and for a moment, he looks tired, like the world rests on his shoulders and he just can’t hold it up anymore. 

“Later,” he says softly, like a promise. 

“You don’t have orders to be out of here?” Jyn tries to joke but she’s unable to hide her doubts, that somehow this is just the cruelest dream of all that she is seeing now. 

But it all fades when Cassian moves his hand to intertwine their fingers, solid and real and like he’ll never let go. “No orders. The perks of being a major,” he says with a wry quirk of his lips. Tension gushes out of her like a waterfall. She squeezes his hand and hopes he understands how grateful she is. Judging by the look he gives her, she thinks he does.

“Get some rest,” he repeats, “I’ll be here.” And so Jyn does, because she thinks she can believe in that.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully will post a companion piece from Cassian's POV soon! Thanks for reading!


End file.
